Mage-Guard of Hamor by L.E. Modesitt Jr.

Rahl was once a native of Recluce, who declared him a Natural Ordermage and exiled him from their shores, claiming he was too difficult and dangerous to teach after he somehow exploded a black wall near the harbor at Nylan. Before he was exiled and left for the Country of Hamor, he met and fell for a healer named Deybri.

Once in Hamor, he worked for the Nylan Merchant bureau but discovered that his superior was helping to support piracy and rebellion in Hamor with the help of the Jeranyi. When Rahl found out, he helped prevent a huge shipment of Cammabark (an explosive substance) from being taken to the pirates by exploding it, and taking out the ship it was on after defending himself and killing his superior.

Afterwards, he was dosed with an agent that made him forget who he was, and he was sent to a iron-processing plant at Luba. But when the clerks there found he could read and write, he was made a clerk, and then an enumerator, a sort of accountant. It was there, after much trial and error, that he regained his memory and was taken under the wing of Taryl, one of the Mage-Guard of Hamor, who trained him to be a mage-guard. From there, he and Taryl are sent back to Recluce, to Nylan, to tell the people there what happened at the port.

On his return to his home, he is distrusted not only for his previous behavior, but also for joining the Mage-Guard of Hamor. As he explains to the Magisters at Nylan what happened at the Merchant Compound, Taryl tells him to go see Deybri and take her to dinner. Rahl does, and finds that his feelings for her are unchanged. In fact, they have grown and deepened. But they are only able to share the single dinner before Rahl and Taryl must leave.

But Rahl continues to write her as he and Taryl are reassigned to take care of Golyat, the elder brother of the current Emperor of Hamor. He was taken out of the succession for the throne because of his complete unsuitability to rule, but members of the armed forces, and the mage-guard itself have convinced him that he would make a wonderful emperor and he should fight for the throne. So he has taken part of the country for his own and is gathering men and materiel to fight his brother for the throne. Hamor has a larger navy than army, so fighting the war is going to be a struggle.

Taryl is assigned as Overcommander of the Army, due to his former position as one of the Triads of Hamor. The Triads are meant to rule the country along with the Emperor, providing him with assistance and advice, but Taryl was forced from his post and now serves merely in the Mage-Guard.

Unfortunately for Taryl and Rahl, the superior of the army is an arrogant, yet cowardly man who chastises his subordinates for doing their jobs yet losing men, but is hesitant to send his forces to attack the rebels. Rahl is assigned to a scouting company, and uses his order senses to look for traps and keep the other soldiers safe. As they advance closer to the area where Golyat and the rebels are holed up, Rahl finds himself running into more and more traps, some of which he cannot break or defuse without losing some men in his squadron.

For this, he recieves scorn from the army commander, and even Taryl seems not as grateful for what Rahl is doing as he pushes Rahl to keep training his order senses and powers. Every time Rahl thinks he has mastered or got a handle on what Taryl is teaching him, Taryl adds more, along with telling him to keep his shields up so that no one else can tell his true feelings. He won't tell Rahl why, just that it will stand him in good stead later.

Rahl continues to write to Deybri, missing and thinking of her always, posting his letters to her whenever he can. She writes back, and he treasures the letters. Meanwhile Taryl replaces the sub-commander and then the commander, as they fail in cowardice, leaving Taryl in true command of the army. Slowly, the army pushes towards the coast where Golyat is holed up, killing the forces he leaves behind to slow and delay them, often with Rahl's help. Then, when they have made one of the coastal cities held by the rebels, Rahl finds a surprise waiting for him. Deybri! She has left Recluce for love of him and joined the Mage-Guards as a Guard and Healer, both of which Hamor is desperately in need of.

But the final battle is ahead, and two of the Triads, Dhoryk and Fieryn, have come to assist the army, both Chaos Mages. Given their obvious dislike of Taryl and the way they dismiss his efforts so far, can Taryl and Rahl win them over before the end, or is there a different reason for their scorn?

This novel is massive, 619 pages, and it takes a long time to read, but those readers who have read the previous novel by L.E. Modesitt Jr, Natural Ordermage, will enjoy the resumption of Rahl's story from where it left off in the last book. Here, Rahl continues training, and discovers that the Magisters of Recluce were wrong. He *can* be changed, but not in the way they train ordermages. And since they feel that their way is the only way, it's nice to see that they can be wrong, since many of the previous books showed how they were right.

Rahl's story is long but fascinating, and he slowly gains depth, going from a callow youth on Recluce to a strong, confident, gifted leader of men and tremendously powerful Order Mage. By the end of the book, no one in the Mage Guard is unafraid of him, so he must be assigned to a position where he can answer to Taryl, who has been his superior, and unafraid of him, all along. This also allows Rahl and Deybri to finally marry, as one of Rahl's little quirks is that his sperm is super-potent, Any time he lies with a woman, he will make her pregnant, unless she is barren or is already pregnant. Being a woman, I found that kind of a bummer. Why? Think about it. You can never have sex just for fun. You always know you'll get pregnant. Way to kill the mood real fast! Boy, Rahl and Deybri are going to have *lots* of kids! In fact, she's already pregnant with his son at the end of the book.

In any case, if you can't already tell, I liked this book a lot. In fact, I'd like to read more about Rahl at some point. Hopefully without him being turned into a Geriatric through overuse of his powers... In any case, read "Natural Ordermage" first, but read this book. You'll be glad you did.